How Is This So Cheap X LAB GT8 Gravel Bike

XDS is a massive Chinese bike brand, one of the biggest manufacturers of carbon frames, making millions of bikes a year that we barely ever see here in the West. Or do we? They make a lot of bikes for other brands. So you probably have seen a few and just didn't know it. They just set up American offices and they emailed me saying, do you want to test this bike? And I said, yeah, right. So here it is, the brand new XDS XLAB GT8, an adventure-ready gravel bike built for control, comfort and conquest. Welcome to First Look, the series where we check out new and interesting bits of tech and give you the rundown on the things that matter. XLAB is XDS's sub-brand, which they brand all of their super high-end bikes with, a bit like S-Works and Specialized. This is their GT8, a carbon frame and fork and size medium, which has 55 millimetres of tyre clearance. Hello, look. You know the drill by now. We're not being paid, not keeping the bike and they have no control over what goes in this video. It's a threaded T47 bottom bracket through axle. The groupset is one by 12 speed wireless Shimano GRX Di2, RX 717 with a 10 to 51 cassette and 42 chain ring. Branta is XDS's component brand, in-house, and they've specced quite a few of the parts on this bike. An alloy chain set with a built-in power metre, 45 millimetre 700C carbon wheels, a carbon seat post, carbon stem and handlebar with some internal brake hose routing. And finally, a Fizik Terra Argo X7 saddle and Continental Terra Trail 45 millimetre tyres set up tubeless. We are now going to weigh the bike. Naked XLAB GT8 weighs 8.83 kilograms or 19 pounds, 10 ounces. Gravel is a loose term. We've talked about this in videos before. If gravel is a spectrum with big fat bike packing, shred bikes on one end and almost road bikes on the other, this is towards the racy end, but with some features that will suit some beefier trails. I know it says adventure and comfort in their marketing, but I think this leans more towards being a gravel racing bike. But there are some extra mounting options which might suit adventuring. And my favourite thing in the world, frame storage. Imagine all of the things you could put in there. So maybe you're entering specific off-road events and you want a fast bike. Maybe you're performance focused and you want to save as much time as possible on your local climbs, or you want to drop your ride buddies, which wouldn't be very nice, but maybe it would be fun. Or maybe you just want a really light gravel bike so it's easier to carry upstairs. Maybe you're just a roadie and you're used to carbon super light aero wheeled bikes with electric gears and that is your baseline. And a heavy one would feel annoying to ride compared to your road bike. RRP for this model is $3,199. And I expect if you're in the USA, there might be some additional sales tax, depending on which state you're in. That puts it in our rating, your piggy bank category. Normally, this is the bit where we go through all the other models and carbon layups. But for this one, this is it. It's just this. I mean, how nice. I wish it was this easy all the time, you know. $3,199 is about 2,400 quid. And I've got to say, based purely on the specs, specs aren't everything, but that's a lot of bike for your money. Let's look at Canyon, who are known for pretty good prices. Grail is their racing one. The option would be CF SL. So their entry point carbon frames, a few great options, but not as electric gears or carbon wheels, unless you want to spend quite a bit more. Same sort of thing if you look at specialized at similar price points. This is really a great price. If you're not from the USA, do not fear. We asked them, what's the deal if you're from other places? And they said, internationally, we are launching all simultaneously this year with the first wave. We've got country specific distributors and dealer networks now or soon to be set up in Norway, Spain, Italy, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, the UAE, South Korea, Taiwan and more. We were also curious about how these bikes are going to be sold. It turns out XDS will have a dealer network, which is still being set up and direct to consumer. They say they'll honor a two year warranty on parts and lifetime warranty on carbon frame sets. I'm pleased to report the finish of this bike is fantastic. All the bolts thread in nicely. There isn't bits of paint spilling over. I had the heads out, filling around with the spacers and everything's finished nicely, which is great to see. And not always the case when we have bikes in for tests. Sometimes you'll be taking wheels off a frame and the through axles won't thread in nicely and it takes force. And in this case, everything's fantastic, except for the fact I'm riding up a very steep hill and holding a camera. So now I can't change gear. I've been dropped by, by peers. Oh no. The livability of this bike is a mixed bag. On one hand, you have massive tire clearance, enough for 55 millimeter tires. That's huge. Cross-country mountain bike territory. So it's versatile. It has around 27.2 seat post. So if you want to run a dropper, there's options. You could probably run a really long travel dropper too, because it's a compact frame. The seat post clamp is external, well easy, nothing falling inside your frame when you're traveling with it. There is a helicopter interrupting my filming. There's extra bottle cage bosses on the top tube, down tube and fork. It's not a one piece bar and stem. So I've been able to easily adjust my bar rotation. Yes from me. And there's a big hole in the down tube where you can put stuff. On the other hand, there is some internal routing to contend with. And you have to run their stem because the headset spaces are proprietary, unless you were to like 3D print something yourself. I did press them on this. And they said, this might be updated in the future. As our product guy would really like to see a vision cockpit himself on the GTA. Oh, and back to the hole. In their marketing, they show this little bag that goes inside. This bike didn't come with one of these. I could literally drop things into the frame through this hole and lose them down inside the BB area or worse. I checked with them. This bag does come with the bike, but this is a demo bike. So someone has lost or stolen it. There are six sizes on offer, ranging from extra small to extra, extra large. All the components scale with frame size. So crank length, stem length, handlebar width. And all of these are quite sensible. Handlebars are flared. And on this bike, which is a size medium and has 39 centimetre bars, the controls measure around 35 centimetre. Regular viewers on this channel will know we're disappointed when customers can't choose what size component can go on their new bike because often it's an expensive faff to change them. Some people are tall yet narrow and some people small but wide. So we asked XDS if customers can specify component sizes at the time of purchasing. And they said, we have been discussing and modelling that out this week. What it looks like is that for our premium road bike models like AD8, AD9, RT9, there will be a free swap option. For the remaining models, including that GT8 you have right now, customers have the option to order other options directly from their dealers. It sounds like they're still working things out. So if things change and they let us know, we'll add that information as a pinned comment down below. Whew, I'm sweating. You should see this. I'm five foot nine and a half, depending on the time of day. And this medium suits me pretty spot on. Is this the first time ever the sizing labels are actually right? This medium is about the same size as my small Scott gravel bike. So be careful, look at the geometry charts and ideally get a bike fit before spending thousands of pounds on a bike. It's a very compact frame. It has a sloping top tube. So if stand over is a consideration for you, or if you wanted to run an absolutely massive dropper post or maybe some other reasons, I don't know. It's a compact frame. Jimmy. Hello. This bike is an outrageously good price. They've achieved it for a couple of reasons. They use a lot of the Branta in-house components, which they make. So they're not just direct to consumer. It's like factory to consumer. So the margins are just going to be better. The only very small place I can see where they save some money is using a, I don't know how to say this brand's name, some S-U-M-C chains, which I think have a reputation for being all right instead of a Shimano one, but Shimano rotors, it's a Shimano cassette. And then it's just their parts. This made the bike so, so cheap. That's quite an odd product to like swap out from nearly a full group set. I did a bit of dismantling because I was curious about the Branta parts and there was no information on the internet online. Well, there probably was, but it was in Chinese. I don't read Chinese. The wheels measure 28 internal, very wide, 44 millimeters deep. The rims are hooked steel spokes and the hubs look almost identical to a DT Swiss ratchet hub, but their patent did expire a few years ago. So I don't think there's anything naughty going on there. They weigh 726 grams for the front, 860 grams for the rear. Bear in mind, I'm using the Park Tool scales here, the DS2, which might not be the most accurate scale in the world, but you get the idea. They're spot on true. Check the spoke tensions. Absolutely fine, consistent as well. No pinging spokes. All the parts are very high quality. But I guess you would expect that though from a company that manufactures for everyone. Do I need to caveat that? I'm not sure if I do. Manufactures for lots of other people. They've definitely signed some NDAs. They won't tell me. We have the 170 millimeter version of the crankset, which weighs 839 grams. And it has a power meter in it, which comes with the bike, no extra cost. There's also no information or testing on the power meter available online. So I hope they send it to Shane Miller or someone like that. So I made a video not that long ago and it was called something like what I wish I knew before buying a gravel bike. And my conclusion, dream bike is basically this. Racy frame, big tire clearance, round seat post. I can rotate my handlebars, tinker with it. But this isn't my dream bike for the most stupid reason ever that no one should care about. The branding is not to my taste. Oh, you are particularly particular about things like this. You obsess over micro details when it comes to like color and typefaces and spacings of letters on logos and things like that. Which is fine. All the things that everyone, definitely everyone else cares about. Yeah, okay, cool. I honestly, it didn't even register to me as an issue until you mentioned it. And now you've mentioned it, it's in my head as, yeah, it is actually a bit weird, isn't it? XLabs. It also says on the chain stay, it says ride beyond limits. Before people jump to conclusions, it's not where the bike is from. It's not me looking for pedigree or anything like that. Look at a brand like Seica. There's some similarities between the companies. They're both Chinese. Why am I drawn to Seica's branding and their bikes, but not these? Maybe some product designer or graphic designer can explain why. Maybe it's just the vibes. I don't know. It can't be explained. I just, I don't know. Who cares what I think? Loads of people are going to love it. And the price is like outrageous compared to everything else. So go for it. It's a wicked bike. My thoughts on this are, they're not yet ready to handle loads of people wanting to buy their bikes. They're still setting up their operations in the West. They're still trying to get all their distribution locked in. I am incredibly confident that they will get that all locked in over the next few years. It's not going to happen overnight. And once they are locked in on actually being able to supply and service customers, they're going to be a force. They're going to be a force. These price points, and you know, it's rare for a bike to go through our testing protocol and then not to be something that we go, well, I don't know about this, or I don't know about that, or that bolt was a bit cheesy, but that one wasn't. So to pass- This is where I started taking stuff apart. Because there was nothing, I was like, oh, I just got to find something. Explode, literally open the hub and like, it just went everywhere. And dammit, it went back together and it was fine. What I really want now is to try out their road bike or one of their road bikes, because they do like the lightest production frame in the world. Surely I can snap that. So let's try it. Yeah, I think I saw it's like 600 and something grams for the frame. I'm going to put aside my snobbery and I'm going to put it in want. Good job, by the way. The footage looks fantastic. You must be having a good time in LA. It was good fun to make. I only crashed the drone five times. 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